Minister Denis Naughten has clarified the name and status of his new department at this morning's meeting of the Oireachtas Communications Committee.
His new department will be called the Department of Communications, Climate Action, and Environment and will have a an additional budget of €44m transferred from other departments.
Fine Gael TD and committee chairperson Hildegarde Naughten asked about the title of the department.
Minister Naughten said: "The department at the moment is officially the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources.
"We will retain all of those functions except for responsibility on the delivery of the Kerr Report in relation to the post offices and the roll out of the National Broadband Plan, subject to the signing of the contract in the middle of next year."
He said Minister for Regional Development, Rural Affairs, Arts and the Gaeltacht Heather Humphreys will take over responsibility for those two aspects.
Officials have been transferred to the Department of Regional Development, Rural Affairs, Arts and the Gaeltacht to assist with that.
"So the expertise has transferred over," Mr Naughten said.
"In relation to the new title of the Department, it will be the Department of Communications, Climate Action, which will incorporate the existing functions of the energy division within my department, and Environment, which is the transfer of the environment functions in the Department of the Environment over to my department.
"About 55 staff will be transferring over to my department. I understand that the memo that is being proofed by the Attorney General at the moment runs to 15 or 16 pages, in relation to the responsibilities that are travelling over.
"It includes waste, air quality, climate action and radiological protection. We'll also have overall responsibility for the Environmental Protection Agency", adding, "its about a budget of €44m will be transferring over."
